One of the advantages of maintaining the news feed is that I get to process a rapid-fire sequence of news stories. Every morning I wake up to fifty or sixty news tips that await me in our inbox — not to mention the ones in skype. As I flip quickly through the tips, copying and pasting them into the database form, I sometimes notice patterns in the news that I might otherwise miss.
These days the most dystopian reports come from the UK. Britain has recently moved to the head of the queue of nations most likely to descend into anarchy, revolution, civil war, or some combination of all three.
The three news stories highlighted below approach the British catastrophe from different angles, but they all converge at the same point. And not all of this is bad news — there is plenty of reason for optimism, if my interpretations are correct
First, from to the Telegraph, comes an ominous fiscal forecast for the UK. According to the haruspices of the Bank of England, the outlook is grim:
Britain is showing signs of sliding towards a 1930s-style depression, the Bank of England says today for the first time.
The country is displaying early symptoms of being trapped in a so-called “debt deflation trap” where families find themselves pushed further and further into the red every month, according to a Bank report published today.
The stark warning will cause serious concerns, since it was this combination of falling prices and soaring debt burdens that plagued the US in the 1930s.
– – – – – – – – –
[…]
Although inflation is currently in positive territory, it is expected to become negative in the coming months.
[…]
The Bank’s paper suggests that Britain is particularly at risk because there is a high proportion of families with significant levels of debt, and many of them are on fixed mortgage rate, which means they will not benefit from rate cuts.
Britons’ total personal debt — the amount owed on mortgages, loans and credit cards — is, at £1.46 trillion, more than the value of what the country produces in a year.
Total personal debt has risen by 165 per cent since 1997 and each household now owes an average of about £60,000.
The Conservatives claim this is the highest personal debt level in the world.
Yes, a deflation is on its way. But it is only a precursor to a bout of serious inflation, possibly even hyperinflation, as governments respond to the crisis in the only manner that is politically feasible.
Deflation — which is wonderful for those of us who still have jobs and own our homes outright with no plans to sell — causes a reduction of wealth, including the devaluation of real estate and other assets. This triggers a capitalization crisis in the banking system and increases the rate of bankruptcies. It’s a vicious circle: the money supply contracts as banks tighten their credit rules even farther, and as foreclosures and defaults mount, banks are left with assets they can’t sell that are appraised at much less than the nominal value they possessed when they were used as collateral for all the bad loans.
Since most Western countries have bailed out and/or nationalized the largest banks, the new bad debt is thus transferred to the State. The government becomes the creditor of last resort, and, unlike the banks or the general public, the government has a solution to its debt problems: it can print money.
Expect a massive inflation in the wake of the deflation, after a lag time of two to five years.
In the face of this looming economic crisis, what does Her Majesty’s Government preoccupy itself with? The important things: how much and what kind of rubbish the Crown’s subjects deposit in their wheelie-bins.
According to The Daily Mail:
Householders With ‘Wrong Sort of Rubbish’ to be ‘Re-Educated’ by the Bin Police
Householders who put ‘the wrong sort of rubbish’ in their bins are to face re-education visits from council officers at their homes.
They will be told how they are failing to recycle properly and will be encouraged to ‘do better’.
Bureaucrats are using microchips placed in bins to measure the volume of rubbish thrown away — and the contents may also be analysed in a search for plastic, glass or other items that should have been recycled instead.
Those who break strict rules will first be contacted in writing, but may be confronted by a council officer on their doorstep if they offend again.
This is not an inexpensive operation. The manufacture and distribution of the new wheelie-bins costs a pretty penny, and the subsequent monitoring and bureaucratic follow-up only adds to the cost.
The irony of all this is intensified by the fact that local councils have had to cut back on recycling operations because of budget problems. So ordinary citizens are being harassed and re-educated for not recycling rubbish that may not be recyclable in the first place.
Only in Britain.
Fiscal disaster. Petty harassment for trivial offenses. Polygamous Muslim immigrants sucking up dole money for multiple wives and uncountable children. Universal surveillance by Nanny.
Where do we go from here?
Well, my money’s on revolution. El Inglés and I have been reading the entrails ourselves, and all the signs indicate that the tipping point is near, if it has not indeed already been passed.
Remember the British soldiers who returned home to Luton only to learn from Muslim demonstrators that they were cowards and war criminals? This incident may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. At long last, John Bull has roused himself to bellow, “That tears it!”
Here’s the story from The Daily Mail:
Fury as Islamic Extremist Who Abused British Troops is Given 24-Hour Police Protection
An Islamic extremist who abused British soldiers during a homecoming parade has sparked further outrage after he was given 24-hour police protection.
Yousaf Bashir was part of a gang that hurled abuse at 200 members of the Royal Anglian Regiment as they marched through Luton last Tuesday after a second tour of duty in Iraq.
The moves comes after the semi-detached home Bashir shares with his parents was attacked on Friday.
Two downstairs windows and the glass in the front door were smashed, and the rear windows of two cars parked in the driveway were shattered.
Two police officers have been stationed in a marked car outside the property since the attacks and a CCTV camera has also been installed.
[…]
Bashir and his friends shouted abuse and waved placards calling the soldiers ‘The Butchers of Basra’, ‘criminals, murderers, terrorists’ and ‘baby killers’.
Two lines of police had to be deployed after the crowd turned on the protesters.
In a show of solidarity for the soldiers, seven of Mr Bashir’s neighbours decorated their homes with Union Jack flags.
The outrage of Bedfordshire residents was inflamed by the lavish solicitousness that the police expended on those who insult and abuse British soldiers.
This from the same constabulary who advise citizens whose homes have been burgled to install better locks!
This from the overworked police force that can scarcely manage to send a patrol car round to houses where home invasions have taken place!
This from the people who charge pedestrians an exorbitant fine if they accidentally drop a scrap of paper on the pavement!
No wonder British blood is boiling.
There’s an old saying: Beware the wrath of a patient man.
Well, we’re about to witness that aphorism in action.
When the patient man is at last roused to his full level of righteous wrath — when the British public decides that it has finally had enough — the resulting spectacle will be a wonder to behold.
Then it will be time to pity Gordon Brown. I hope for his sake that the e-borders program processes his exit in a timely fashion.
Hat tip: Gaia.
It sounds like living in New York City in the 1970s. The cops protected the crooks as long as they were Negroes.
I would be greatly heartened to see the British rise up and act like men.
At least in Chamberlain’s day, he just came home waving a worthless scrap of paper saying he had achieved “Peace in our time”. He did not instruct the English constabulary to act as bodyguards for every nazi in Britain as though they were some hothouse flower.
The highest concern of British elites is to conserve the declared enemies of their state, even fending off those like Geert Wilders who merely criticize them! This is extreme masochism, a sick mentality that seeks out humiliation and finds it in dhimmitude to their “betters” in Islam.
Those who are not masochists but merely afraid, are quaking when Muslims make up what, 6% of the population? What do they imagine will happen in future when truculent Muslims dominate large swathes of Britain? The time to make sharia seeking (the majority) Muslims feel unwelcome is now. Think of their ideology as no better than Nazism. The more offended and threatened they feel, the better. Book large liners to take them back to sharialand.
Laine, ever see the film, ‘The Remains of the Day’? If not, please do. Then let’s talk about Chamberlain and his alliances.
Vladtepes,
The Remains of the Day is a great film but the scene that you are replaying in your head, where a U.S. Senator berates a large gathering of European diplomats as “gentlemen amateurs” who don’t understand unappeasable aggression, is painfully dated.
The fictional Senator Lewis, if he were around today, would either be telling similar European diplomats that Islam is a religion of peace or else he would be marginalised as a fringe politician like Tom Tancredo.
Islam o’phobe I agree with all your points from the scene in my head to how it would be treated today. Doesn’t really change my point about how Chamberlain thought of and dealt with the Nazis of his time though. But you did nail me and how it would play out today. Happy St. Patricks day to ya by the way O’phobe.
By the way, I have decided that as well as an Islamophobe I am actually an ‘Allahphobe’ as well. We need a new DSM version I think.
There’s an old saying: Beware the wrath of a patient man.
This poem is as valid
The Beginnings
Author: Rudyard Kipling [More Titles by Kipling]
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.
Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.
The tipping point is near? What should have been the tipping point was reached long ago. (For years I’ve been posting items under the heading “Britain self-destructs,” finally giving up when it became boringly repetitious.)
All that while, I’ve read comments claiming that the British are fed up, they’ve had it up to here, the worm is about to turn. I don’t doubt that many British people are unhappy with the way things are, but as far as I can tell, they’ve had rebellion bred out of them. (I’m sorry if that sounds condescending; the same might be said of many of us Yanks.)
Fed up. Grumble. Fed up more. Grumble more. My British friends, prove me wrong. Please.
Doesn’t really change my point about how Chamberlain thought of and dealt with the Nazis of his time though.
He only got into politics because he was the son of a great politician, Joseph Chamberlain. I think most people would agree that political skill is not hereditary.
Happy St. Patricks day to ya by the way O’phobe.
Thank you.
I’ll just add that I think Stanley Baldwin ultimately deserves more of the blame for WWII than Neville Chamberlain.
Rick Darby,
Sad to say but I think you are absolutely correct. But the affliction Britain is suffering that prevents it from doing anything at all to act in its own defense is shared all throughout the West. It is part of the Western worldwide self-loathing. I suppose many Westerners feel some sort of cultural guilt for belonging to the most successful culture in world history. A culture that has accomplished more than the rest of the world’s cultures combined. PC, multiculturalism is truly a mental disorder and sadly it affects most of the Western world. This of us that have avoided infection seem to be outnumbered.
I don’t know what will cure people except perhaps are real threat to their existence. And by real I mean terrorism on a major scale, an attempt on the life of a nation’s leader by a Muslim, the outbreak of civil war, or some similar mass event. Some people are in extreme denial or hate our culture so much they are aiding and abetting its end.
When it comes to rebellion or engaging in civil war modern man has far more to lose in a material sense than our ancestors from just over a hundred years ago. Who wants to lose their job, home, and comfortable life to engage in civilizational battles? Far too many people are soft and unwilling to actually fight for the comforts their forbears bequeathed to them.
Personally I’m ready now. Just need the call.
When reading Charlemagne’s comment about how some of us have avoided infection, I suddenly thought of zombie horror movies where a diminishing group of “normals” are picked off one by one by a herd of zombies.
The liberal knee jerk PC behavior and murderous hatred of anyone who doesn’t share their brain dead state is absolutely characteristic of the ascendant Left that is destroying Western civilization from within. Everywhere you turn, your child’s school, the office water cooler, there’s a zombie ready to snatch your head off for thinking freely.
The only thing we have going for us is that those uninfected are clearly made of stern stuff in being able to withstand the constant indoctrination and might therefore have an effect beyond their numbers once they organize. Right now, they’re a diluted minority, at least in major cities.